Bob Chilcott
Christmas Oratorio; Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree; The Pear Tree Carol etc
Neal Davies, Sarah Connolly, Nick Pritchard; Choir of Merton College, Oxford/Benjamin Nicholas
Delphian DCD34321 72:10 mins
Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio was premiered in the middle of summer some four years ago at the Three Choirs Festival. It’s a balm-like mix of the Christmas story – gleaned from the familiar ‘And it came to pass...’ texts from the book of Luke (familiar not least for those who have long, possibly fidgety, memories of school carol services), the traditional intoning of hymns and Chilcott’s sensitive, always lyrical settings of carols and liturgy.
One of the strengths of this oratorio lies in the narrative from Luke, given to the Evangelist – Nick Pritchard, here as at the premiere – whose mellifluous, quiet tale-telling adds lyrical narrative in between organ-accompanied hymns and new carol settings.
The sombre Magnificat is sung by Sarah Connolly, as Mary after the visitation of the Angel Gabriel. Alongside Connolly’s rich, expressive mezzo, a largely split choir of male and female voices sing the Latin, as if the massed ranks of history’s nuns and monks intoning the hours behind her. It’s a quietly theatrical touch, sung evocatively by the Choir of Merton College, Oxford, as if somehow to express ecclesiastical benediction, or perhaps relevance. The straight-sung hymns, with organ, can jar, but the occasional bit of judicious brass from the Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia, conducted by Benjamin Nicholas, is transformative.
Chilcott uses the Evangelist, and Olivia Jaguers’s accompanying nimble harp, to give us those moments of rapt stillness that mark that certain Christmas magic, and also to change the flow amidst some lovely settings – particularly ‘A Carol to the King’.
The sweet harmonies of Chilcott’s ‘Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree’ and ‘The Pear Tree Carol’ bookend the Oratorio, the latter followed by his jazz-inflected ‘Welcome All Wonders’, which whilst apt in subject matter (joy at the birth of Christ) is utterly incongruous musically and programmatically in this context. Sarah Urwin Jones
